Beyonce's "Lemonade" Creates Massive Buzz

Beyonce performs in January during halftime of the NFL Super Bowl 50 football game in Santa Clara, Calif.

AP Photo/Matt Slocum

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There's been buzz for months around Beyonce's new "Formation" tour.

In Tampa, fans are especially excited, as Beyonce's been spotted rehearsing for Friday night's show at Raymond James Stadium.

But the singer took the hype to another level when she recently surprised fans by dropping a new album. Called "Lemonade," it came with a lush hour-long video -- and is full of hints of infidelity and relationship crisis. The album was released the same night as the video appeared on HBO.

The album triggered a massive firestorm of social media chatter and news media coverage. After all, Beyonce and her husband – rapper and businessman Jay Z - are one of the world's biggest celebrity couples.

“If you were a media outlet and you weren’t talking about Beyonce’s album, then you were irrelevant for a certain part of your audience,” said Kelly McBride of the Poynter Institute for Media Studies

But critics have been analyzing more than the soap opera plot of the video album. It includes political statements and features a slew of celebrity cameos from tennis star Serena Williams to the mother of Trayvon Martin and other young black men killed in altercations with police.

McBride said "Lemonade," with its narrative arc about Southern Black women, also showed the public the incredible business savvy of Beyonce, who released the album on the streaming service Tidal, of which Jay Z and Beyonce are part owners.

“Beyonce is just a genius in the music business because of the way she released this. You know, musicians are all freaked out because it’s really hard to make money off of music, because everybody wants to stream it. The way she released it is that you have to buy the entire album…And then there’s all the narrative of the videos, which implies there’s a bit of drama going on with her and Jay Z.”

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